Tag Archives: body/mind awareness

Did you ever get up from your desk after a long day of drafting documents, batting back emails, and talking on the phone with clients and other lawyers, to discover that you are exhausted in both body and mind, noticing only then how much stress and tension your body is carrying? Sore back, stiff neck, aching shoulders, weary spirit…..those seem to come with the turf of legal conflict resolution work. The way I think of this is that I’ve spent another day living in my neocortex. Forgot again to remember that I am a fully embodied human primate with a triune brain that can bring far more than pure reason to the table. Forgot about embodied emotion as a tool and resource. Forgot I even have a body, below my neck. Forgot about how stress diminishes my creativity, my ability to empathize and to harvest valuable cues from interactions with others.

Maybe you do that, too? Here is an idea that I’m finding to be useful: stillnessbuddy.com offers free trials of several different applications that will pop up on your screen for a few seconds at intervals you set, reminding you to stop, breathe deeply, become aware of your body, notice your sense perceptions, let go of specific tension points. Slightly longer stillness moments prompt with simple mindfulness/awareness exercises for letting go of thoughts and relaxing both body and mind. If the pop-ups arrive at really inconvenient times, one click makes them disappear immediately.

I’m noticing that I like these mindfulness moments most when I least need them, and least when I most need them. That in itself is food for thought.